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When requeening, release the helper bees?

I am requeening a queenless hive. I bought a packaged queen and was wondering if I should release the attending bees that came in the cage with her but keep her in the sealed package until I'm ready to pull the cork and let the house bees eat through the candy.

Re: When requeening, release the helper bees?

I've heard that it does increase acceptance rates, but I haven't personally seen much of a difference. Seems like extra work to me, but when you just spent $18 a queen (plus shipping) it seems like easy odds-raising. YMMV.

Re: When requeening, release the helper bees?

It will take a couple days to eat through the candy after you remove the cork or plug over the candy, if it has one. Attendants or atendantless is like direct release - everyone has the right way to do it and everyone else is wrong. Spraying the attendants with sugar water will increase acceptance. A better indicator is if they ball the cage when you put it in. I have replaced literally hundreds of queens with attendants without issues and I do not have time to remove attendants or wait a day after killing the old queen. It would be better to wait a day or two but that is travel time for both trips. If you injure or accidentally lose the queen was it worth it?

Re: When requeening, release the helper bees?

I just thought I'd add one more data point to the discussion.

Since I didn't feel confident in releasing the attendants, I put the corked queen cage into the hive to check the temperament of the house bees. After three days I checked them and everybody was alive and the cluster around the cage pretty mellow. I then popped the cork and pierced the candy. Two days later the hive evicted a virgin queen. (The replacement queen was marked so this was not her.) Two weeks or so later there is lots of capped and uncapped brood.